


I'm something else when I see you

by stelleappese



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Boris being completely smitten, M/M, future deaths implied, low-key homophobia I guess, not particularly hot sex lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 10:07:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19082839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelleappese/pseuds/stelleappese
Summary: A ghost-like summer comes and goes. Every day Boris has to yell at people, pressure them, order them around; and every day Valery is there on the edge of Boris’ perception, scribbling notes, reading reports, smoking cigarette after cigarette.





	I'm something else when I see you

**Author's Note:**

> I just want these two to be happy for a little while, ffs ;_;

"We'll be dead in five years," Legasov had said, and his words echo inside Boris' head even as he's lying in his uncomfortable hotel bed, staring at a strip of light coming from underneath the door as it splits the ceiling in two. Legasov's tone had been annoyed, restless. But not scared. He wasn't scared.

How could he _not_  have been scared?

He pictures him now, with the window behind him, the pale light coming from outside lighting him up at the edges like some sort of apparition. The look on his face when he realized those words, that for him seemed like an afterthought, a truth he'd known for his entire life, had hit Boris like a ton of brick.

And then, for some reason, he pictures him back on the helicopter that brought them there, yelling at Boris, calling him by name. Boris' name on Legasov's lips had somehow unsettled him more than the sheer terror on his face. He'd dismissed Legasov's fear as the fear of a small, lonely, insignificant man, but that fear meant a complete awareness. And there was no fear now.

There are steps outside the door as one guard's turn ends and another begins. The strip of light shivers as it's disturbed, then goes still again. That thin blade of light is the only thing between Boris and complete darkness; as it is, he feels the darkness press against his skin, ready to engulf him.

Legasov knew, he knows, exactly what kind of death awaits them both, and he didn't even flinch.

He didn't even flinch.

 

* * *

  

Boris drags himself out of bed when the night is still thick and heavy around the camp. They've put up a tent for them to meet in, as long as the weather's good enough, and he marches in expecting to be alone, but Legasov is already leaning over the table, staring at a mess of papers. Handwritten notes, typewritten reports, a map. A half-forgotten cup of tea is still steaming weakly, set aside as Legasov frowns at whatever he's reading.  
He looks up.  
"Good morning," he says, his voice hoarse, "Are you all right?"

Boris ignores his words and walks around the table to take a look at what Legasov's worrying over, but when it doesn't immediately become clear to him he just sits down and rubs his eyes. Legasov, either sensing or suspecting Boris can't understand, starts talking about data-gathering, perimeters, the manpower needed. His tone is calm, almost monotone. Boris finds himself distractedly following Legasov's hands as they wave around, following a fictional map, broader than the one in front of him.

There's a clock ticking somewhere, and it seems to get louder and louder, every tick a slap straight to Boris' brain. When someone outside shouts an order, Boris actually jumps.

"Boris," Legasov says, soft, worried.  
"I'm fine." Boris snaps. Legasov calling him by name does strange things to him. It makes him feel tiny. Naked. Legasov's jaw sets, he raises an eyebrow, not even looking at Boris. His face is too fucking expressive. Sooner or later, those judgmental looks of his will get him in trouble, if his sharp tongue doesn't do that sooner.

"If you need some time..." he says, still looking at his map.  
"We have no time," Boris says. "And I don't need you to hold my hand, comrade."  
Legasov presses his lips in a thin line.  
"Don't give me that look." Boris says.  
"I'm not looking at you." Legasov answers.  
"You're getting cocky," Boris mutters, disapprovingly. For some reason, either Boris' words or his tone make a spark of amusement shine inside Legasov' eyes.  
"I'm not trying to insult your manliness." he says. "A situation such as this would bring the strongest of men to their knees."  
"You're not on your knees," Boris points out, "And you're not the strongest of men. Nor the manliest."

Legasov's mouth snaps closed. His confidence seems to drain away. He crosses his arms, as if hugging himself, frowns at Boris. Boris thought he didn't like him being cocky, but he was incredibly wrong. This. He doesn't like this. He doesn't like the cornered-animal look on Legasov's face.

"I've read your file." Boris says.  
Legasov just looks at him, hands curled into fists, vaguely hunched over, like a child standing in front of a teacher, ready to be screamed at.  
"You're not in trouble."  
"It was a misunderstanding."  
"Of course."

But still, Legasov doesn't move. He just looks away from Boris, which somehow makes it even worse.  
"All those men," Boris says, then clears his throat. "We're going to need dosimeters for them."  
Legasov nods, "And whatever protective gear we can come up with," he says, in such a soft, fragile voice Boris wants to punch himself in the face.  
"Whatever you need." he says, and Legasov just nods.

 

* * *

 

It's shortly after that that "Legasov" becomes "Valery."

The moment Boris realizes that Valery may be unexpectedly (and probably unwittingly) brave, but he's also lost. And naive. And he's vaguely aware of those shortcomings, but he still throws himself at danger, he still asks Boris if he's all right when he's quiet for too long.

 

* * *

 

"It only happened a few times," Valery blurts out at one point, between a puff of smoke and the other.  
The sky is dark even though it's the middle of the day, and thunder rolls in the distance. The rain doesn't seem to want to fall; it lets the world wait and wait.  
Valery stares at his feet.

Boris isn't sure if it's because he's ashamed or because he's scared. What he's sure of is that those words must have been stuck in Valery's throat for a few days after he denied Boris' accusation. He wasn't made to lie, Valery; he wasn't built for it.

"When it was too quiet, when the night was too still. When my skin felt too tight around my body, and I needed someone to touch me."  
He throws the cigarette on the ground, crushes it underneath his heel, breathes out one last puff of smoke.  
"I understand." Boris says, after a moment of silence.  
"I'm not sure you do." Valery shoots back.

And it's not cockiness this time, because his voice is paper-thin. It's something else. He's tempted to tell Valery he, too, understands loneliness, but where Valery's feelings snake right underneath his skin, Boris' have burrowed deep, and would need to be pried out of him.  
Then again, maybe Valery is right. Boris has caught himself talking about things he doesn't understand too many times, since Valery was dragged into his life.  
Maybe Valery's loneliness is different from Boris', maybe it's a specific kind of loneliness. Maybe there are other things he's been denied.

He's too righteous to pretend. He wouldn't build a family on lies, wouldn't pretend to love a woman, wouldn't bring up children without being able to tell them who he really is, wouldn't let anybody in knowing he'd have to lie to them. It almost makes Boris blush to think that, for a few seconds, he thought his own loneliness could compare.

There's a loud, crackling explosion. Not thunder, it doesn't rumble afterwards, doesn't linger. The world holds its breath for a long moment, then every dog in Pripyat starts barking and howling.  
"Lightning struck somewhere," Valery says, noticing Boris' puzzled expression.  
Boris nods distractedly, looking at the reddish bolts zig-zag across the led clouds like incandescent veins underneath thin skin.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes the sheer, unadulterated affection in Boris' voice when he calls Valery "Valera," or the lightness of his touch when he squeezes his shoulder to keep him steady, or the surge of rage he feels any time people talk down to him, scares him half to death.

 

 

* * *

 

"I don't think anybody knows me as well as you do," Valery tells him once, and Boris can't even really tell where that sentence came from.  
He's making tea, Valery, facing away from Boris. His jacket has been abandoned on a chair nearby, his sleeves are rolled up. He sneaks a hand underneath the collar of his shirt and massages the back of his neck for a moment.

Boris, sitting on the other side of the room, lets himself look at him now that Valery can't catch him.

"There is plenty about you that isn't in your file," he says, lightly, but for some reason those words feel heavier than he meant them to be.

 

* * *

 

It happens once Valery comes back from Moscow after escorting Khomyuk out of jail. It's so late it's almost early, and Valery looks bone-pale and exhausted. He doesn't ask Boris why he's still awake, and Boris doesn't ask why he came to his room instead of going to his own.

"Is she all right?" he asks.  
"She's all right." Valery answers. 

There was a word Valery had used a while back, maybe even still in April. “Etiolated.” Boris hadn’t known what it meant, hadn’t asked, either. He’d looked it up later, on his own, without telling Valery. “To cause (a plant) to whiten or grow pale through lack of light,” the dictionary had told him.  
That’s what Valery looks like to him now.

“You should get some sleep.” he says, but Valery shakes his head and presses the palms of his hands against his eyes.  
Stubborn, even when he’s barely able to keep himself up.  
Boris walks closer, rests a hand against his shoulder and tilts his head to look at him.  
“Valery…” he begins, meaning to tell him going to sleep is not a suggestion but an order, meaning to maybe be a little harsh, to tell him he doesn’t need him around if he’s not in the condition to help.

But then Valery’s hands drop to his sides, and he looks up at Boris, and the words fade from Boris’ head.  
The blueish shade under Valery’s bloodshot eyes is turning almost purple, but he still holds his chin up and looks at Boris almost daring him to order him around.

That’s when Boris leans in and kisses him.

Valery’s hands press against Boris’ chest, more out of surprise than really pushing him away. He makes a tiny little sound that turns into a sigh as soon as Boris deepens the kiss.  
Valery’s fingers grip Boris’ shirt a little tighter after he breaks the kiss; he leans into him a little more heavily, and Boris keeps him up.  
He cups a hand to Valery’s cheek, smiles of the lightest of smiles as he looks at Valery’s dumbfounded expression, eyes wide, lips parted slightly.  
“Go to bed.” he says, his thumb brushing against Valery’s skin.  
“I don’t…” Valery starts, his voice tight, “I don’t want to be alone in my room.”  
“Then stay here. I’ll sleep on the couch.”  
“No, I’ll… I’ll take the couch.” Valery murmurs, catching himself as he leans into Boris’ touch and blushing a little.

He falls asleep almost immediately, Valery. Boris doesn’t. He lies awake as dawn paints the room a cold, pale blue.

 

* * *

 

The months that follow are such a weird thing.

A ghost-like summer comes and goes. Every day Boris has to yell at people, pressure them, order them around; and every day Valery is there on the edge of Boris’ perception, scribbling notes, reading reports, smoking cigarette after cigarette. They never talk about their private life during the day.

Come night, they take walks across the deserted town.

(“I was going home from the lab, maybe twenty years ago,” Valery told him one night, “Everything was very quiet and still, so when someone nearby laughed it startled me. It was two kids. Sixteen, seventeen. Maybe younger. Lingering in a gateway, the boy pressing the girl against the wall. It had been snowing, I remember. She was holding the boy’s face with her gloved hands, and they were just… they weren’t kissing, they were whispering to one another and smiling.”

Boris looked at him quietly. He knew that feeling. The world barely existed to him, too, when he was a young man and thought he loved a young woman.

“I still think about that scene, from time to time.” Valery murmured, and there was longing and something like homesickness in his voice: Boris recognized that mix of feelings so vividly because they were exactly what he felt as well. If he were a braver man, he would have told him. _I wish I knew you when we were both children; I wish we had our entire life before us._ He didn't. But his knuckles brushed against Valery’s, he hooked a finger to Valery’s for a moment, and he almost got a smile for it.)

Back from their walk, they go to one of their rooms and share a drink.

(“My grandmother would tell me the strangest stories,” Boris told Valery once, hesitantly despite the burst of courage from the vodka; “About crows and ravens who turned into humans, and winters that never ended.”  
And again.  
“Once my father was so angry at me he locked me outside whole night. It was late November. I think I almost froze to death.”  
And again.  
“I used to think death was the end of all things. You just stopped. Were no more.”  
“What do you think now?”  
“I don’t know. ‘Is this is? Is this all there is?’ that’s what I think.”)

Sometimes they say goodnight after that. Sometimes they don’t.

 

* * *

 

Boris tries not to give too much weight to the fact he immediately needs to look at Valery after the robot on Nina responds to their commands. He also tries not to comment on Valery’s expression, but the words just come out.  
“Valery, what’s that? A smile?” he grins, and Valery doesn’t curl up on himself and wipe the delighted expression off his face, he smiles a little wider and blushes, embarrassed, looking away from Boris for a moment. He does look up at him when Boris grabs his face and drags him into a hug, though; and beside the excitement of the moment and the almost childlike pleasure seeing Valery smile gives Boris, the one thing that stands out to him is how perfectly Valery fits pressed against him, how naturally he rests his head against Boris’ shoulder and wraps his arms around him.

Even after the hug, Boris keeps an arm around Valery’s shoulder, and Valery still leans into him, and he may not be smiling as brightly anymore, but his eyes definitely are.

 

* * *

 

By the time Boris is done screaming, his lungs burn, he’s breathing hard, and the phone is a lump of plastic and metal. He remotely hears himself tell Valery and Tarakanov that the government gave the Germans the propaganda number of roentgen, that the robot was never going to work. When he walks back into his trailer he does so in a haze, feeling carved out and distant, as if observing someone else’s movements instead of his own.

Once inside the trailer, he doesn’t know what to do with himself.  
He plops on a chair, presses his hands to his temples as if to try and push back the throbbing headache he can feel coming.

When the door squeaks open then clicks closed, he’s ready to explode again, but the fight goes out of him as soon as a hand touches his shoulder and Valery murmurs his name.  
“I’m _trying_ , Valera…” Boris whispers, hoping he can keep his voice from shaking, because the rage has quickly morphed into desperation, and he doesn’t want Valery to fully see that.  
“I know.” Valery says.  
His hands both rest on Boris’ shoulders for a moment, then he leans in and hugs him from behind, forehead pressed to the side of Boris’ head.

Boris didn’t even know he wanted to, but he finds himself standing up, turning around, pushing the chair out of the way and wrapping Valery in a tight hug, face buried against the crook of Valery’s neck.  
“Oh,” Valery says, softly, “All right,” and for some reason it makes Boris want to laugh, but he’s sure if he started laughing he would not stop, he’d just laugh until he’s sobbing.  
One of his hands is against Valery’s head, and when his fingers dig into Valery’s hair he feels his breath stutter.

He wants to beg, like a child, for Valery to stay with him until the end of everything.  
Instead he moves away just enough to have room to kiss him until they’re both breathless.

He drags and pulls Valery until his back hits the table, and once he’s there he leads him until he’s sitting on it and Boris is pressed against him, Valery’s thighs pressed against Boris’ hips.  
“What if someone comes in?” Valery asks, against Boris’ mouth.  
“They wouldn’t dare.” Boris answers, urgently, trying to kiss him again  
“You said they’re listening.” Valery insists, and Boris looks at him, at his pale eyes, expectant and worried.  
“Then be quiet,” he whispers, and that does sound like begging. Valery looks at him for a long moment, then nods once, then twice, then brings a hand to the back of Boris’ head and pulls him in for another kiss.

And Boris may have more experience with this kind of things, but it’s still Valery who has to guide him through it. Silently, just with his hands and his eyes, while Boris clumsily fumbles around. Valery is the one who grabs Boris’ hand and sucks on his fingers, he’s the one who then guides it down between his legs. (He arches up a little when Boris’ fingers push inside him. His eyes look darker, shinier.) And he’s the one who, after a couple of failed tries, wraps his fingers around Boris’ cock and leads it inside him. (He closes his eyes for a moment when he does that.)

Once Boris starts thrusting into him, Valery curls up against him, his forehead against Boris’ shoulder, his fingers clenched around Boris’ hair. He tries to be quiet, and when he realizes he can’t, he bites down on the collar of Boris’ uniform.  
There is so much Boris would like to say, but he’s well trained in pushing back his thoughts when they threaten to spill out; instead, he kisses Valery’s neck and the side of his face, he caresses his hair with the hand that’s not busy between his legs.

It doesn’t take him long to spill inside Valery, and he would be mortified if it wasn’t for the fact the tip of Valery’s cock feels wet when he drags his thumb against it. He doesn’t even think about moving away before Valery also comes, with a tiny little muffled whimper.

“Are you all right?” he asks, against Valery’s temple, before pressing a kiss against it.  
“Yes,” Valery murmurs. He’s still holding Boris tight, trying to catch his breath. It takes him a while to let go, and Boris honestly doesn't mind.

 

* * *

 

Boris wakes up one night and catches Valery standing at the window, looking down at the orange glow of Pripyat's street lamps. He wants to ask him what's wrong, but he's too sleepy to do it immediately, so he just looks at him for a while, at the way the light pours on him, at the smoke rising from his cigarette. 

When he finally sits up, with a groan, Valery turns to look at him.  
"It's nothing," he says, before Boris can say anything. "Go back to sleep."  
"Is it one of those nights?" Boris asks, getting up anyway and walking up to Valery, grabbing his shoulders from behind and giving them a squeeze.  
"Those nights?" Valery asks. He tilts his head when Boris leans in to place a quick little kiss on his neck.  
"Too quiet and still?"  
Valery sighs. He puts out his cigarette in the ashtray on the windowsill, leans back against Boris.   
"Maybe I'm overthinking this," he says, "The city actually _feels_  empty. It feels..." he lets the sentence trail off, shakes his head.

"Come back to bed," Boris whispers.   
"I'll just keep you awake."  
"Then keep me awake." Boris grins. Valery actually snorts. "All those things going on inside this pretty head of yours can wait until tomorrow," Boris says.  
"Yes," Valery murmurs, still looking outside. "You're right."

 

* * *

 

 

The ground has frozen overnight, but not hard enough to prevent the snow from melting as soon as it falls. The thin layer of ice crackles underneath their feet as they walk to the car.

They face each other, Boris and Valery. Valery's hands are deep inside his pockets, his face is half-hidden in a scarf, snow is melting in his thin blond hair. He looks at Boris from behind his glasses. The very first time Boris took those glasses off of Valery's face he blushed even harder than the very first time he took his clothes off in front of Boris.

"Please, be safe." Boris says.   
Valery doesn't answer, which is, by itself, already an answer.  
"I'll be here," Boris says, all the same, "When you're done."

Whether it's in Pripyat or in Moscow, he'll be there. It will probably be truly cold by then, cold enough to make breathing painful. He knows he's being as naive as he often accuses Valery of being, but there is one single thing he wants right this moment, and it's to be in Valery's kitchen, in a house he knows only from his description (mismatched mugs and plates, Valery's cat napping in a spot of cold sunlight,) and see Valery walk in, carrying inside a trail of cold and the pungent smell of winter.

Fuck the KGB listening to them. Fuck the rules, the law, what people might think. The five years they have together will turn into four in a few short months. As long as he's got time, he wants it to be _their_  time. Even if Valery does as Boris thinks he will, and puts aside life and safety, stands on a podium with the world at his feet, and, like an idiot, tells the whole truth.

"I mean it." he says, in a fragile, small voice.  
He can only see half of Valery's face, but his eyes look terribly soft. He takes Boris' hand and holds it tight for a moment.  
"I'll see you then." he says, and Boris decides to take it as a promise.

He stands in the middle of the muddy road on the outskirts of town, looking at the car as it drives away. It takes him a few minutes even after it's disappeared out of view before he can bring himself to move. 


End file.
